Editing Mike McCready (section)

===Temple of the Dog===
{{Main|Temple of the Dog}}
The trio were attempting to form their own band when they were invited to be part of the [[Temple of the Dog]] project founded by [[Soundgarden]]'s [[Chris Cornell]] as a musical tribute to Mother Love Bone's frontman [[Andrew Wood (singer)|Andrew Wood]], who died of a heroin overdose at age 24. Cornell had been Wood's roommate. The band's line-up was completed by the addition of Soundgarden drummer [[Matt Cameron]].{{cn|date=January 2024}}

The band started rehearsing songs that Cornell had written on tour prior to Wood's death, as well as re-working some existing material from demos written by Gossard and Ament.<ref name="Guitar World - Requiem for a Heavyweight">Alden, Grant. "Requiem for a Heavyweight." ''[[Guitar World]]''. July 1997</ref> This was McCready's first recording studio experience, and he took a central role in the project. McCready performed an epic four-minute-plus solo for "Reach Down". According to Cornell, McCready's [[Headphones|headphone]] monitors flew off halfway through the recording of the solo, and he played the rest of the solo without being able to hear the backing track.<ref name="tenpast">Weisbard, Eric, et al. [http://www.fivehorizons.com/archive/articles/spin801.shtml "Ten Past Ten"] [[Spin (magazine)|''Spin'']]. August 2001.</ref> McCready considers this track to be one of his proudest moments.<ref name="Gilbert">Gilbert, Jeff. [http://www.fivehorizons.com/archive/articles/gs0595.shtml "Prime Cuts: Mike McCready – The Best of Pearl Jam!"]. ''Guitar School''. May 1995.</ref> The Temple of the Dog project eventually featured vocalist [[Eddie Vedder]]. (Vedder had come to Seattle to audition to be the singer for Ament and Gossard's next band, which later became Pearl Jam.) Vedder sang a duet with Cornell on the song "[[Hunger Strike (song)|Hunger Strike]]" and provided background vocals on several other songs. The band decided that it had enough material for an entire album, and in April 1991 ''[[Temple of the Dog (album)|Temple of the Dog]]'' was released through [[A&M Records]].{{cn|date=January 2024}}